New Year’s Resolution

imagesI’ve been thinking about making a New Year’s Resolution. So, this year, taking my role as lead for health and well-being seriously, my resolution is simple. In 2016 I want to improve my well-being and encourage others to do the same.

 

The New Economics Foundation have done some amazing work on how we can improve our well-being. “NEF is the UK’s leading think tank promoting social, economic and environmental justice. Their aim is to imgrestransform the economy so that it works for people and the planet. The UK and most of the world’s economies are increasingly unsustainable, unfair and unstable. It is not even making us any happier – many of the richest countries in the world do not have the highest well-being.” Have a read about their incredible work (www.neweconomics.org).

 

NEF have come up with 5 simple ways to improve well-being and my New Year’s resolution is to use their 5 steps and blog about the effects I experience personally as a result. I hope that this will be replicated in my work as our team engages with communities. So, here are the steps:

 

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1) CONNECT – this year I am going to be more present. I have found that ridding myself of my

imagespersonal twitter account and spending less time on social media has already helped this. I am going to listen with attention and speak with intention. I am going to listen with attention to my wife, my children, my friends, my family and my patients (rather than assuming what they will say) and I am going to behold them, dig for the treasure in them and be grateful for them. I am also more well when I connect with God, who is love. For me, more than anything this means taking time to be still. Being part of a community, rather than moping around in self-isolation (a tendency of mine at times – surprising for an extreme extrovert!) is also key.

2) BE ACTIVE – This year we are launching a really exciting sports initiative in our local schools to imagesencourage our kids to have better health long into the future. I am going to continue running and swimming, but I will increase this to ensure I am being active on a daily basis.

imgres3) TAKE NOTICE – I have a painting on the wall in my consulting room (done by an amazing local artist) that has these words on it: “Take time to do what makes your soul happy.” I am going to feed my soul good things this year by noticing what is around me. I live in a world, surrounded by beauty – from tiny rare orchids to vast mountains, the sea and the night sky. I am going to notice this beauty more.

4) KEEP LEARNING – I already have some things booked in. I’m going on a refresher skiing course,images
before we take to the mountains in February. I am widening my culinary skills with some cooking lessons. I am re-learning how to arrange some pieces for our local choir. I am continuing to work with a life coach and the NHS leadership program. This will be a year in which I learn a lot! I love learning.

5) GIVE – At the beginning of every year, my wife and I review our finances and make sure that we are giving enough money away. We try to ensure that we give at least 15-20% of what we earn to various friends or charities. Money can have such a hold and I find as I earn more, it is easier to get sucked into an unhealthy imgresview of it. Money is just money. I am determined to have a relationship with it that is joyful and giving rather and anxious and hoarding. I love the phrase – “Live Generously”. I want to live in a way that gives of my time, skills, energy and resources without burning out in the process! My life coach has taught me well about boundaries – very empowering, as long as the motivation is to be able to give. It’s amazing how much a sense of giving/contributing to community and the world really improves our sense of well-being. It’s not an easy path. It’s all too easy to get one’s sense of self-esteem and self-worth by how much one gives, so I will try and remain honest about this.

So, if you want 2016 to be a year in which your well-being increases, why not try the 5 ways above? And if you fall over, get back up and keep walking!

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UK, You’ve Had a Heart Attack – How Are You Now?

MIYou might want a cup of tea whilst you read this! I often see patients a week or two after they have been discharged from hospital with a Myocardial Infarction (what we often refer to as a heart attack). In this part of my home county, once someone is diagnosed with having a MI, they are admitted to Blackpool Victoria Hospital, where an amazing team of cardiologists literally save their life by putting stents into arteries in their heart that have become clogged up. It has been a phenomenal breakthrough in medical science in the last 15 years and has revolutionised how cardiology services are configured.

New medicines are prescribed to help keep the heart and kidneys healthy and patients are reviewed to see how they are getting on. What I always love in the initial consultation following a heart attack is how reflective a person becomes. Everything in their life gets assessed and reprioritised. Key questions are asked about how much stress they have been under, and why they were living at such a fast pace whilst forgetting about what is really important – living well, relationships, love, beauty, people and connecting with the story of who they feel they really want to be for the rest of their life. It is very rare to find a person who is desperate to get back to business as usual or someone who doesn’t ask some fundamental questions about what life is for. It is possible in some of these consultations to have some of the best coaching conversations a practitioner can ever hope to participate in. Asking some questions of the patient about what they are going to change and how they are going to do so.

And yet, in the UK (and indeed the west), we suffered a heart attack beyond all proportions with the economic crash of 2008. But we have not really reflected on the major warning sign that it was to us. We have a government and financial system intent on “getting us back on track” – and I wonder to what, exactly? It isn’t that the financial system alone, just happened to have an infarction. It’s like assuming that a heart attack happens simply because of a defect in the cardiac system itself – this simply isn’t true. The crash was only a sign of just how broken our entire body is and we would do well to reflect a great deal more about how we are living as a nation and whether it gives us any real sustainability for the future of the planet and the generations to come. Our current response is not only to “get back on track” with where we were, but  to “tighten our belts” (which means to cut benefits left right and centre without regard for the dehumanisation of people in the process). It’s like believing the correct response following an MI is to emaciate and punish yourself, without asking some fundamental questions about how healthy your whole life is.

So, what about about a national health check – let’s look at each system in turn and ask some questions – because the truth is, we haven’t faced the fact that we are in an age of transition in which answers are not obvious and we don’t have any experts who have been to the alternative future we long for. So, we have to learn together and ask open questions that provoke better conversations to help us.

Let’s start with Education. George Monbiot has written a stunning piece in the Guardian about the current health of the education system: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/09/aspirational-parents-children-elite?CMP=share_btn_fb – well worth a read. Our education secretary, Nicky Morgan on the other hand isNicky Morgan intent on more testing of our children and has recently given a speech in which she claimed that arts and humanities subject choices close down a child’s career options and they will earn 10% more in their life if they do Maths at A level – whooppee do dah. For an alternative and altogether more inspiring approach, look to the lovely Ken Robinson:

Couldn’t education become about real learning in which our children feel inspired and find hope for the future?

Ecology – Oh dear – so far a string of broken promises on the environment from the western governments. It turns out that oil and industry is more important than the future of the planet. Is it? If not, what are we going to do?

Defence – undergirding our entire nation are three things: Money as debt (see finance), the state of the exception (see law and order) and military violence. The ultimate trust of our nation rests on nuclear warheads. How healthy is this? How much fear do we have to create as a narrative to believe this is actually a good thing? Do we want that to be the undergirding faith of our nation? And what about the change in rhetoric regarding soldiers who die in war. David Cameron recently referred to soil from the battle fields of WWI (which was brought to London) as ‘Holy Ground’ and he described those who died fighting for the ‘allied forces’ as ‘martyrs’. Is the nation state therefore the ‘saviour’? If it is, what on earth do we mean by this? If not, then is there other language we can find to use about the two world wars without creating a very dangerous worldview?

Housing – 69% of the land continues to be owned by 0.6% of the population and there is a real lack of social housing available in deprived areas. This is causing significant problems for those already under huge financial strain, given the effects of austerity measures. Who does the land belong to and why?

Justice – How many of the perpetrators of crime are victims of a system that left them with little or no other choice but to commit crime? How restorative is our justice process?

Law and Order – our prisons are full to breaking, our police force is being cut and replaced with private security firms. How effective is our law and order system? And what undergirds it? Georgio Agamben cuts through to the heart of the issue in his exquisite book ‘State of Exception’. Underneath the whole of western ‘democracy’ lies the right for the government to suspend the rule of law i.e. invoke Marshall law if deemed necessary. I look at the people movements emerging across Europe right now and wonder how far we are from the ‘state of exception’ being invoked. All it will prove, as we already know, is that democracy is a vain imagination. What is it that undoes ‘the powers’? Could a movement for positive peace, founded on love offer any realistic alternative? If so, what?

Immigration – apparently the answer to our problems is to become more fearful of the ‘other’, create a politics of fear and blame immigrants for our financial problems. We are barricading our doors Syrian Refugeesand building up our walls to ‘protect our way of life’. And while there are currently 4 million homeless Syrian refugees, the UK has welcomed 147 of them in total. Did you know that the entire world population could fit into Texas? Our concerns about lack of space and lack of jobs is really unfounded and we seem willing to ‘love our neighbours’ with great initiatives like comic relief and generous charitable giving, just as long as it doesn’t actually have to affect us and our way of life…..how loving is that? How healthy is love that does not truly cost us and change us?

Health – this whole blog is about it, but 1 in every 5 pounds spent in the NHS is due to poor lifestyle choices we are making. We can’t live imgresexactly how we want if we hope to continue with a health service that is free for everybody. How will we change the culture? Can we find innovative ways of working collaboratively within the system that breaks down the silos in order to work more effectively for the good of our national health? Is privatisation the answer? If not, what are we willing to change/protest about to keep it public?

Government – a majority with 36.4% of the vote? Deeply wrong. There continues to be profound disengagement with the system and a deep cynicism that the current style of government can bring any real lasting change. We need a new politics – what might that be like? Where are the leaders who will choose to facilitate instead of dominate?

imgresEconomy – ah yes, that old chestnut. Do we want an economy in which the gap between rich and poor continues to widen? Do we want a system in which the poor are punished whilst the rich are exonerated for their greedy crimes? The entire western economy is based on a system of debt that requires us to continually grow and expand our borders so that the debt can be serviced. We have become slaves to the economic beast. Where are the alternative experiments emerging? What can we learn from them? Are we brave enough to try something new? I have posted this before, on my other blog – www.reimaginingthefuture.org  but Charles Eisenstein is so worth watching:

The human heart provides us with a great metaphor. The health of our nation(s) is not good. We’ve had the wake up call, and if we’re not careful (this is a warning from a doctor, so take heed), the next heart attack will be even more catastrophic. We have to reflect on where we are and ask ourselves where our current trajectory will lead us. I don’t want to get back on track if it leads us to more depression, destruction and decay. I want to find the road less traveled by – the one that leads to life, hope, love, regeneration, recreation and a beautiful future for our children. So many questions. So much to learn.

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